A Bass Player's Guide to The 2018 Grammy Awards

A guide to the biggest award show in music for the bass player, by us bass players. Check out all the bass action at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards.

By Jon D'Auria & Chris Jisi
, Jan 22, 2018

Dust off your top hats, put on your best formal wear, tune up your basses, and turn on your televisions because the biggest music award show of the year is almost here. Now it's not like bass guitar is always the star of the red carpet, we know. But this year there's loads of low end talent heading to Madison Square Garden for the 2018 Grammy Awards that you should know about.

In it's 60th year, even just the performances are packed full of deep players from Eva Gardner with Pink, Jamareo Artis with Bruno Mars, Thundercat with Kendrick Lamar, Adam Clayton with U2, Annie Clements with Maren Morris, and so many others. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

The list of nominees of credited bass players and composers is properly stocked full of the biggest talent on our instrument. And that's why we're giving you a quick guide to some of the bass players nominated for those coveted golden gramophones. Tune in on Sunday, January 28th to watch the full show, but for now, enjoy these clips of our bass fam who are being recognized by the academy.

Album of The Year:

Bruno Mars (Jamareo Artis) – 24K Magic

Childish Gambino (Thomas Drayton) – Awaken, My Love!

Kendrick Lamar (Thundercat) – Damn

Best Pop Performance/Solo/Group/Album:

Pink (Eva Gardner) – "What about Us"

Imagine Dragons (Ben McKee) – "Thunder"

Portugal. The Man (Zach Carothers) – "Feel It Still"

Bob Dylan (Tony Garnier) – Triplicate

Coldplay (Guy Berryman) – Kaleidoscope EP

Seth MacFarlane (Chuck Berghofer) – In Full Swing

Dance/Electronic: Best Recording & Album

Bonobo (Simon Green) – Migration

LCD Soundsystem (Tyler Pope) – "Tonite"

Gorillaz (Seye Adelekan) – "Andromeda"

Rock: Album/Performance/Metal Performance

Foo Fighters (Nate Mendel) – "Run"

Mastodon (Troy Sander) – "Sultan's Curse"

Metallica (Robert Trujillo) – "Atlas, Rise!"

Meshuggah (Dick Lövgren) – "Clockworks"

Queens of The Stone Age (Mike Shuman) – Villains

Alternative Album:

Arcade Fire (Tim Kingsbury) Everything Now

Country:

Maren Morris (Annie Clements) – "I Could Use a Love Song"

Zac Brown Band (Matt Mangano) – "My Old Man"

Kenny Chesney (Hamoni Kelley) – Cosmic Hallelujah

Jazz

John McLaughlin (Etienne M'Bappe) – "Miles Beyond"

Christian McBride Big Band – Bringing' It

American Roots:

Alabama Shakes (Zac Cockrell) – "Killer Diller Blues"

Blues:

Tedeschi Trucks Band (Tim Lefebvre) – Live From The Fox Oakland

And last but not least, we're very proud that two of our very own from Bass Player Magazine are being nominated!